Lydia Hearst is queen of the castle

SHE may look like a million dollars, but she’s actually worth a lot more than that.

SHE may look like a million dollars, but she’s actually worth a lot more than that.

Because, while Lydia Hearst may be the new face, and body, of the latest range of Myla designer lingerie, she’s also the great-granddaughter of American newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, who once owned St Donats Castle in the Vale of Glamorgan.

He hosted Hollywood stars at the impressive stone pad during the 1920s and ’30s – and the era’s style has been reflected in these glamorous shots.

Now 23-year-old Lydia, heiress to her great-grandad’s massive $4.4bn publishing fortune, looks set to make a pretty penny of her own, having just been named Supermodel of The Year at the recent ‘Fashion Oscars’, The Michael Awards in New York.

And the knack for striking a pose clearly runs in the family. The photo of Lydia’s mum Patty wielding a machine gun, after she sensationally joined up with the American guerrilla group that kidnapped her, became one of the most iconic shots of the ’70s.

Patty was just 19 in 1974 when she was snatched by the left-wing Symbionese Liberation Army from her California home.

Her captors demanded the release of some of their members who were in prison in exchange for her return, as well as insisting that the Hearst family should distribute $70 of food to every poor person in the state – a scheme that would have cost a whopping $400m.

Unsurprisingly neither demand proved successful, but what was unexpected was Patty’s shock announcement shortly afterwards that she’d joined the ranks of the SLA.

But the revelations didn’t stop there and she was later arrested with others trying to rob a bank in the San Francisco Bay Area, after brandishing the same assault rifle she’d famously been photographed with earlier.

Although she claimed she’d been brainwashed into joining the group, she was given a seven-year jail sentence of which she served a 22 months.

She was given a full pardon by Bill Clinton in 2001.

But Patty’s grandad had also caused a big stir of his own 50 years before by buying into the small Welsh community of St Donats near Llantwit Major, after he saw photographs of the castle in Country Life magazine. William Randolph Hearst, who also owned a castle at San Simeon in California, bought St Donats in 1925, and spent a huge sum restoring and extending it for his lover, the actress Marion Davies.

The millionaire, the inspiration behind the ruthless press baron of Orson Welles’ 1941 film Citizen Kane, introduced electricity to the area, and the stars he’d invite to St Donats burned just as brightly.

Some Like It Hot’s Marilyn Monroe and screen swashbuckler Errol Flynn, not to mention political heavyweights like Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George and a young John F Kennedy were all known to visit. JFK stayed at the castle as a boy when his father, then the US ambassador to London and a friend of Hearst, took the US president-to-be to the 1938 National Eisteddfod in Cardiff.

Comedy legend Bob Hope, whose mum originally came from Barry, would also stay and was said to like getting in a few rounds of golf at Royal Porthcawl course, sometimes even bringing his screen partner in the celebrated Road To... movies, Bing Crosby.

But it was the renowned Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw who bestowed the best honour on St. Donats during his stay. “This is what God would have built if he had had the money,” he said.

Hearst sold the castle in 1938 after extending the number of bedrooms from three to 35.

Today the privately-owned Hearst Corporation owns magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, plus US newspapers and TV channels. St Donats Castle hosts an international college and an arts centre.

WalesOnline is part of Media Wales, publisher of the Western Mail, South Wales Echo, Wales on Sunday and the seven Celtic weekly titles, offering you unique access to our audience across Wales online and in print.